I Remember Qui-Gon
by Barefoot XO
Summary: When Qui-Gon came to Tatooine with Padmé, a woman fell in love with him forever. This is her story. QJ/BW.


I don't own Star Wars or any of the characters... They belong to George Lucas.

Not for Anakin Skywalker fans. The narrator does not think highly of him.

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><p><strong>I Remember Qui-Gon<strong>

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><p>I'll always remember when I turned nine. That age was when my life changed forever.<p>

It was the age I was when my mother left us, and I had only my father left.

It was the age I was when a human of my own age won the podraces.

It was the age I was when Qui-Gon came to Tatooine...

I doubt if he even saw me then, passing down the street with a girl far older and prettier then I would ever be, I had feared, with a strange alien that looked as if even the process of breathing was a difficult one for him to understand, and a little astro-droid that looked factory-new, or would have save for the odd bit of carbon-scoring...

Still, I noticed him, and despite the fact that I was barely on my way to becoming the woman I am today, I was in love.

Qui-Gon was a rugged man, wearing a lion's mane of thick brown hair, just beginning to grey with the signs of age.

Yes, he's probably almost fifty years older then me, but we don't worry much about age-difference here on Tatooine. If you are both of age, nobody cares. And while I was not of age yet, I would have waited a lifetime for him, and I'm sure many others would have done the same.

I realised he was a Jedi from the start. Long before that dolt of a slave, Anakin, had even met them. He saw the lightsaber and he knew. I saw Qui-Gon's regal bearing and calm confidence and I knew.

I know, I know. I should have known better. I know that Jedi can't marry. My father, between drinks of juri juice at the local cantina where he eventually drank himself to death, clued me into that little fact. I didn't care. I loved that man, and Jedi heritage wouldn't change that. It tore me apart inside when he left, but I was glad that he had escaped that red-horned brute. I was hiding behind cargo containers and wasn't seen.

Years went by and the suns set many times. I began dating Owen Lars out of convenience rather then love. My mother was still long gone and my father dead, so what choice did I have on Tatooine where life is so very hard when you are alone?

It was on one of my visits to Owen that Anakin Skywalker returned to Tatooine. I still can't believe that Qui-Gon took that dolt over me. Hells, I still can't believe that a wonderful woman like Shmi managed to conceive that dolt without any other genes being involved. I say she was knocked up and was just embarrassed. Goodness knows it happens on Tatooine.

Anakin was coming to see his mother. Poor Shmi. We had lost her to the Tusken Raiders some time ago. But that dolt that was her son went out into the desert anyway.

In the midst of the night I heard a voice I had not heard in years. It was Qui-Gon's voice. He was crying for Anakin to stop. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Anakin had said that Qui-Gon was slain by the red-horned brute shortly after they left Tatooine the last time. And yet it was him, my Qui-Gon, and I cried myself to sleep that night.

When Anakin returned the next morning, bearing his mother's body, I was shocked. He claimed, to Padmé at least, that he had slain the Tusken Raiders, but I've always wondered if perhaps he himself had something to do with her death...

Anakin left again, with Padmé, taking Threepio with him. I never missed that nattering wretch. I hoped never to see them again.

Years passed, and an older man, nearly as old as Qui-Gon was when he came to Tatooine, brought Owen and myself a child. He claimed that he was Obi-Wan Kenobi, once Qui-Gon's apprentice, and that the child was the son of Anakin. Then he asked if we could keep him safe.

Owen refused, point blank. But, for once, I chose to defy him. Qui-Gon had seen something special in Anakin, and while I did not agree with the assessment, I believed that this boy, Luke by name, would be what Qui-Gon had seen in Anakin.

This would be the son I never would have, the son I should have had, had Qui-Gon not been killed. I look at Luke, and I feel love, I feel youth, I feel freedom. But most of all, I remember Qui-Gon...

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><p>Sooo... What do ya think? :p<p>

_Jasper_


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